


Hallowed Ground

by Catglue



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Royai Week 2019, except it's a whole ass fic, it's fine, let me live my liiiife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-04-24 11:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19172746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catglue/pseuds/Catglue
Summary: It's been one year since The Promised Day and Riza Hawkeye is still coming to terms with the fact that she survived. When she gets an ominous note from the mayor of her tiny hometown to the East, she takes some time off work for the first time in recent memory; however, separation anxiety, a string of burglaries targeting the estates of well-known alchemists, and old memories brought to the surface stand between her and a relaxing trip to the country. It’s all well and good to remember what it is to have a future until she’s faced with the ghosts of her past.





	1. Coincidence

**Chapter One: Coincidence**

 

* * *

 

Riza Hawkeye hadn’t expected to see the spring of 1916, and yet here it is.

It’s not quite spring - not yet - but it’s headed swiftly in that direction. The days are getting longer, she’s seeing green return to the trees, and she recalls that this time last year she was glorified secretary to a homunculus, awaiting The Promised Day.

It’s strange how life now is both normal and irrevocably transformed. The team, excepting Falman who chose to remain in the north, is back together but with new ranks and a new office. In his new capacity as Brigadier General, Mustang has merited a private office, which in Riza’s mind only impedes her ability to make sure he stays on task. If anything he’s more distracted when removed from all possible stimuli, and she sometimes invents reasons to check up on him just to make sure he’s not sleeping at his desk. It’s happening less and less, though, and she knows this means he’s able to sleep more at night.

She is too, although her sleep is still punctuated by nightmares. Recently it’s been nightmares of Ishval, which is a refreshing change of pace from the nightmares of the gold-toothed doctor and the General’s stricken face deep under the streets of Central. This is undoubtedly because they’re heading to Ishval as soon as summer is over, finally, to begin the long and futile process of redemption. She both dreads and longs for the penance of rebuilding something they’d once destroyed, knowing that absolution is impossible but hoping to find it anyway, somewhere in the desert.

She’s early to work again today, in part because of another nightmare, and goes to the mail room as a matter of course. There’s letters for the General as always - he actually gets fan mail now, which is a concept she finds so wholly repulsive it’s all she can do not to throw the letters directly into the trash. Mustang, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind, even reading parts of the amorous letters aloud, usually while throwing furtive glances in her direction. She always does her best not to react, unsure why he is under the impression that she cares. She doesn’t.

Maybe a little, only because they distract him from work.

Her heels click against the tile in the mostly empty hallway as she heads to the office, leafing through the mail, and she almost stops when she sees something addressed to her. She has no family to speak of, and her friends are all here in Central. Winry sends her regular letters but this one has a distinct lack of crayon drawings on the envelope. Who does that leave to be sending her mail?

She’s still poring over it when everyone else starts to come in. First is Fuery, a minute or two early, still yawning as he puts his bag down and gives her a casual good morning salute.

“Captain Hawkeye,” he says. “What’s that?” she folds the letter more times than is necessary and places it in a drawer.

“Nothing much. How is your report on the potential for crops in Ishvalan soil?” she asks; a far less prying question. He launches into an explanation as the letter in the drawer of her desk throbs in her mind like a heartbeat.

 

_Captain Riza Hawkeye,_

_Apologies for interrupting your busy schedule, but I must relay that this past week suspicious activity has been reported on your estate. On one occasion figures were seen near the house but frightened off by the constable. I have of course ordered that a closer watch be kept on the house but it is my opinion that it may be time to sell the property as it’s been in disuse for so long._

_Regards,_

_Ernst Meyell_

_Mayor_

 

In all honesty she has half-forgotten that the manor house, probably falling down and overgrown, is her responsibility. She hasn’t given the old house much thought at all in years, apart from a nightmare she sometimes has wherein she wanders the empty halls like a ghost, calling out for her parents. She has to think harder to remember Ernst, finally recalling that he’d written to her a few years ago, saying he had taken over Mayorship of Werthem, the small town northeast of East City that Riza is from. As the others trail in and Fuery’s attention shifts, she pulls out a leave form and hastily fills it out, being purposefully vague. The General will know what was going on by the look on her face alone; this is purely a paper trail.

She waits until he comes in, says his hellos, and disappears into his office before slipping in with a coded knock. He doesn’t even look up, the knock telling him all he needs to know.

“Captain,” he says, by way of greeting, eyes still fixed on his pile of paperwork. “What can I do for you?” she slides the request on top of the pile and directly under his nose, before stepping back, hands clasped behind her back. He studies it for a moment before responding teasingly, “You’re getting sick of me already?”

“I need a week to clear out my father’s house before I sell it,” she says, and the tense silence that follows is palpable.

“Is that so? Are you going alone or is Catalina going to help?” he asks, knowing full well Rebecca is far too busy as the Furher’s assistant.

“Just me,” she tells him. “It shouldn’t take long; my father didn’t keep much around the house.” He looks like he considers this for a moment - looks like being the operative phrase here - and leans back in his chair, thoughtfully tapping his pen against the top of the desk, and her ears prick up. Tapping is their way of cluing the other person in that there’s going to be code or subtext in the talk to follow. This is an old practice, from when they still needed a signal, but one they’ve carried on for years.

“You know I’ve been thinking about taking some time off too,” he says casually and she resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“I think you should hold off until I get back,” she tells him pointedly, and he meets her even gaze with his own. He’s steepled his fingers and is peering over them as though they were in a chess match and he’d just made a bold move. “Someone has to run the office.”

“And what makes you think I’ll get anything done with you gone?” He asks, a smile ghosting his lips. They often joke about his lack of work ethic, how ‘useless’ he is without her (and he isn’t useless, only unmotivated) but something about his tone now gives her pause. He sounds almost flirtatious but underneath something in his eyes causes her stomach to knot and she realizes they’ve been practically glued to each others sides for a year.

“You’ll live,” she says sternly. “I’m sure you’ll cope how you always cope and waste time talking to some woman or other. Anyway, will you approve it?” A smile slowly spreads over his face at her implicit approval of a few coded phone calls, and the sickly-sweet feeling in her stomach intensifies.

“All right,” he says at last. “I guess we’ll have to manage somehow.”

 

-x-

 

The house is just as she remembers it, and a lump forms in her throat as she walks up to the front door, getting the key out of her pocket and fitting it into the lock with hands that nevertheless remain steady.

It’s like walking into a tomb - everything frozen in time, sheets still over the furniture from when she had placed them there almost ten years ago. She’d been a child then, she thinks, moving through the house and pulling the sheets off furniture, opening curtains to let the light in. Everything of her was pretty much gone from this place - she had taken what few possessions she wanted and simply left the rest. Her father wasn’t a material man but even after his death she’d stayed away from the study. Even now she isn’t looking forward to clearing it out.

So she doesn’’t, not yet anyway, choosing instead to start on the ground floor. She had decided on the train ride here to sell the place furnished, and so it’s only a matter of taking small things, sorting them into boxes to either donate or throw away entirely. Photos, books, knick-knacks. She does not have a box for things to keep.

She gets the first phone call about half an hour after arriving, and as she heads to the phone, still sitting on the table off the hallway, she thinks wryly that someone must have checked the train times. It certainly wasn’t information she’d included in her leave request.

“Hello?” she answers neutrally to be safe, unsure if this is an official phone call or if it’s General Mustang trying to reach his old flame Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth, it’s been a long time,” a flirtatious baritone dances down the line and her annoyance melts away.

“Yes, Roy, it has,” she replies in kind, slipping easily into the familiar character. There’s only a slim chance now that his calls are being listened to - slim, but possible - so she plays along. She, Riza, has never referred to the General by his first name in her adult life, but Elizabeth is another story. It’s almost thrilling, and while she isn’t sure she imagines that he enjoys it as well. “To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing from you?”

“The workload is light this week; my Captain is out of town,” he explains. The Captain in question leans against the wall, holding the old fashioned earpiece up with a smile playing across her mouth. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all,” she replies, tone light and breezy. “I’ve just been doing some packing.”

“Packing?” he replies. “Not moving, I hope?”

“Not me, my cousin,” she tells him smoothly. “I just got back from her place. I was about to take a shower, actually.” Elizabeth is shameless. “Moving is hard work, it turns out.”

“I bet,” he says and she can hear him grinning. “Well if you never need any brute strength I’m available this weekend,” he offers and she knows it isn’t directed towards Elizabeth. “You can save all the unpleasant work for me, I’d be happy to come help.” She’s quiet for a moment, thinking of the study that needs to be cleaned out eventually.  “Elizabeth?” his voice comes through, softer this time. “I mean it. Say the word and I’ll help any way I can.” She takes a shaky breath.

“Thank you, Roy,” she says, and means it. “But I- we’ll be fine. There’s not too much left to do. It was nice hearing from you,” she adds. “Feel free to call me more often.”

“I will,” he says. They say their goodbyes, her managing to squeeze in another use of his first name, and she returns to the work at hand, feeling somewhat comforted by the coded phone call.

The second call comes around dusk, surprising her as she’s leafing through a photo album that had to have been her mother’s. Pictures of Riza as a small child line the album, and stop abruptly when she’s about eight. Her father had clearly had no interest in finishing the book. She makes her way to the phone, wondering for only a second who it could be.

But of course, she knows.

“Checking up on me again?” she purrs into the mouthpiece of the old-fashioned phone, already in character.

“Multitasking,” he says briskly. He wasn’t calling Elizabeth, then, and she feels a flush of embarrassment for jumping the gun. “Captain, we’ve gotten orders to check up on Munin, and then we’re moving on to Werthem on the Fuhrer’s orders. I guess there was a break in at the house of a retired state alchemist and for some reason Grumman thinks Werthem could be a target.” She can hear the shrug in his voice, but without him in front of her it’s impossible to read what he’s thinking. It’s no accident that Grumman is sending Mustang’s crew to her tiny hometown; he would of course know precisely which alchemist lived in Werthem and would have reason not to want that alchemist’s work stolen. “We should be there in the morning.”

“Do you mean you’ll be in town or that you’ll be here as in my house?”

“I’ve got to go, Captain, have a good night! 

“Wait, General-”

There is a click as he hangs up and Riza slams the receiver down, irritated. She wants to believe he’s smart enough not to bring their entire team to her father’s house. She wants to, but she isn’t sure he has that kind of restraint. She spends most of the night cleaning up the ground floor, looking for any traces of him in the tarnished frames and worn leather albums. It’s not until she’s dug deeper, clearing out a disused drawer in the kitchen that she finds a solitary piece of paper with alchemical equations scrawled lazily in familiar handwriting. She means to throw it away, but instead fondly folds it up and tucks it into her pocket.

 


	2. Mortal/Immortal

**Chapter Two: Mortal/Immortal**

 

* * *

 

_“You’re going to be okay? Living here alone with him?”_

_“Of course,” Riza all but scoffed, a mannerism she had picked up from Roy - Mr. Mustang when her father was around. She didn’t know for sure that she would be okay, but at fourteen she was so different from the kid she’d been when Roy had come to study under her father. She was like a plant who had  finally gotten to spend time in the sun. She’d flourished in his presence, and she would miss him._

_“You’ll write to me, right?” He looked bashful, hopeful. She couldn’t quite place when he had gone from awkward and gangly to boyishly handsome. For that matter she didn’t know when she had gone from compact and sure-footed to awkward and gangly but here she was. Suddenly the gangly one._

_“Lots,” she promised, holding out her hand and hoping it wasn’t sweaty. Instead he wrapped her in a tight hug that she returned hesitantly; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been hugged._

_“Oh and stay out of my room,” he joked. “I expect it to be waiting for me just as I left it when I come visit.”_

_He did come visit, years later, in time to help her plan a funeral, but he’d slept on the couch, as though not to venture further into her life than the sitting room. When she told him, somewhat self-consciously, that his room as ready for him he’d told her he didn’t want to intrude._

 

-x-

 

Riza entertains the idea of sleeping in her childhood bed for about five minutes, standing anxiously in the upstairs hallway by the huge window they had never gotten curtains for, before going to sleep on the couch in the sitting room. The fire she set earlier is crackling away, and shadows dance across the walls. She stops at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, breathless, feeling as though she’s been transported through time. She can almost see a scrawny fifteen-year-old Roy Mustang setting up the checkers board, alchemy textbooks piled high on the coffee table.

But she is alone. There are no alchemy textbooks, no checkers, and no Roy Mustang. Not yet, anyhow. She’s glad, not for the first time, that the General is accomplished at letting people only see the parts of him he wants to be visible. If any of their team guess at their shared past here in this house Riza knows that she personally will never hear the end of it.

She settles into the couch and stares into the fire, muscles taut with nerves. Something about being back here feels like floating in a void, in a place untouched by time, existing somehow outside the mortal coil. She remembers how living here before, sometimes she would feel like the one who was haunting the old house, too incorporeal to be real but too solid to fully float away.

Riza wakes on the couch in horror to find that it’s at least mid-morning and someone is knocking at the door. Blearily she grabs her sidearm off the coffee table, and creeps towards the front door. Halfway there she realizes it’s probably just the team but she’s been through too much not to stand on tiptoe to peer through the peephole before lowering her gun and opening the door.

“Nice place,” Breda tells her, leaning to look past her. “Sure you want to sell it? Fix it up a little and this could be a great place to retire.” Riza moves aside to let him pass, followed by Fuery whose arms are full of equipment. Havoc is nowhere to be seen, but the General walks up, hands in his pockets, with an impossible-to-read expression.

Impossible for most people, anyway.

“You slept on the couch,” he says quietly, peering around her into the sitting room. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, sir,” she says in a clipped tone, reminding him with a glance that he’s never been here before. “I’ve gotten a lot done since yesterday.” Havoc appears finally, striding around the side of the building.

“I couldn’t find much, boss,” he tells them. “There’s a few tracks around the northwest side, and some tampering with the window, but that’s about it. Hey Hawkeye,” he gives her a nod. “Really nice landscaping.” He shoulders the duffel bag he clearly left on the porch and heads inside. Riza gives her superior office another significant look, then turns and walks inside and to take stock of the chaos that had immediately befallen her house.

“Well I’m going into town,” she announces. “Just as soon as I change. I want to speak to the mayor about what he saw here.”

“I’ll go too,” the General announces. “You could use a second set of eyes and it won’t be the first time we’ve pretended to be a married couple.” she rolls her eyes but everyone seems to take this in stride.

“I’ll get a wiretap going and see what I can find out,” Fuery tells them.

“I think I should go alone,” Riza tries to give Roy a significant look but he’s carefully examining the contents of a china cabinet. “There’s no evidence of foul play apart from a tampered window. It might even just have been some kids from the town trying to get into what they thought was an abandoned house. And there’s certainly no reason to pretend to be _married_. This isn’t Aerugo.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Roy says, picking up a teacup and turning it over.  

“I don’t know,” Breda says slowly, still looking around the room. “Your father was an alchemist, right? But he never worked for the state-“ 

“How do you know that?” she asks, probably sharper than she means to.

“We did our due diligence,” Mustang replies, finally meeting her eyes.

“Which means,” Breda continues, “either he didn’t qualify because his research wasn’t enough to impress them, _or_ he simply wasn’t interested in working for the military. Understandable,” he shrugs. “My biggest question is why Grumman sent us here - the pattern seems to be this individual - or group - going after _state_ alchemists exclusively.”

“Exactly,” Fuery chimes in, busily setting up what looked to be a great deal of equipment on the dining room table. “So it looks like, for whatever reason, the state’s had their eye on your father for a while, Captain.”  

“I remember them sending scouts to try and recruit him,” Riza says, and this much is true; however the last scout was years before her father ever decided to take on an apprentice. “But as far as I know his research is all destroyed now. I made sure to see to that after his death.” Also technically true. Havoc shrugs.

“It’s weird but the whole thing is weird; what do they plan to do with incomplete research?” he wonders out loud. Riza is already heading for the staircase to go change and almost misses the General’s quiet reply.

“Maybe they’re trying to solve the equations.”

 

-x-

 

The walk into town is almost painfully familiar. She walked this way every day to school for years, occasionally with Mustang to walk her home afterwards, chattering the whole time about a new transmutation or new theory or asking her what _she’d_ learned. He was very good at talking then, just as he is now, pointing out a particular type of tree lining the path as they approach the town and he reaches out to lace his fingers through hers in a motion so natural that she doesn’t notice at first. She just has to give a sidelong glance to get an apologetic grin back.

“We’re undercover,” he tells her.

“Which I still think is unnecessary,” she reminds him, but leaves her hand in his as they walk through town. It’s changed, as she noted on her walk from the train station. There are more buildings, more houses closer to the center of town. Further off she can see the old schoolhouse - that building looks exactly the same. “I could have done this just as well on my own. Maybe better,” she considers, “ _You_ might get recognized and that’s bound to be awkward for everyone involved.” He shrugs at this.

“It’s not a bad story. I studied under your father, left for the military, you followed, and now we’re married and selling the old house. Hardly unbelievable.”

“No,” she says slowly. “Not unbelievable.” It could have been reality, she thinks, had a butterfly flapped its wings at the right time.

Seeming to read her mind, as usual, he lifts their joined hands and quickly presses a kiss to the back of hers as they approach what passes for a town hall in Werthem, and she ignores the blush she can feel creeping up her neck. His touch makes her feel human, solid, not like a shade haunting the manor where she grew up but a flesh-and-blood human.

The receptionist directs them to what is really the only office in the place, but the door opens as Riza is about to knock, and she finds herself face to face with Ernst. He looks vaguely familiar, as do many of the people in town. 

“Are you the mayor?” she asks anyway, holding her hand. “Riza Hawkeye. I got your letter.” The man looks between her and Roy for a moment.

“Ah… which letter was this?” he asks, and she falters.

“You wrote to tell me that trespassers were spotted on the property,” she reminds him. Surely he can’t be _that_ busy. The town is miniscule and from the bustle of the office he looks like he has plenty of help. Roy looks to be bored but she knows he’s actually taking in all the details of the office.

“See honey, I told you it wasn’t that serious. There’s nothing in the house anyone would even want to take, unless they’re into ornamental spoons.”

“I apologize, Miss Hawkeye,” Ernst says with a shrug, donning his hat. “While it’s nice to have you - and your ...husband?”

“Fiance,” Roy corrects, settling an arm around Riza’s shoulders.

“-in town,” the mayor continues, “I didn’t write you. Terribly sorry for any confusion.”

 

-x-

 

“Well that was pointless,” Riza laments as they walk back up the road to the manor, having stopped in the market to buy groceries. It was reminiscent of the many times they did so as teens, although this time instead of generally being more of a nuisance than a help, Roy seemed to enjoy himself, strolling through the sunlit streets, her arm looped through his as she filled a basket - her old shopping basket, actually - with produce.

“Not entirely,” he replies. “The mayor was clearly lying, and while I’m not sure why I think we can safely say there was money involved.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“His hat for one thing. His jacket for another. Both brand new, and the suit was tailored, which I know for a fact isn’t cheap.” She snorts at this.

“Says the man who would rather buy nice suits than furniture.”

“Priorities, Captain,” he says. “I think Ernst might just be our man.”

 

-x-

 

She’s still resentful of the intrusion, but by evening the air in the house seems lighter, the voices of her comrades chasing away the spectres that seemed to lurk in the corners of her vision. They’ve stopped working for the night, and she can hear them laughing and chatting over a bottle of wine Breda found somewhere in the kitchen. Riza stands at the end of the hallway, looking at the double doors that lead to the study.

 _This is ridiculous,_ she thinks, and pushes the door open.

 _The metal was cold against her skin, the blanket between her and the table barely giving her any protection. It was in contrast to the burning pain that seared her shoulder blades. She had agreed to guard her father’s research but now she was beginning to think better of it. She’d planned on guarding a notebook, maybe, or even burying research notes somewhere in a weatherproof box._  

_This would be, her father told her, much more secure._

There it is, the metal work table where she spent much of the fall the year after Mustang left for the military. It’s smaller now than in the nightmares she had for years afterwards. She walks forward, touches it. All that trouble, she thinks, and the tattoo was destroyed not even five years later. All that trouble to ensure the secret of flame alchemy survived and here she was, still wishing its keeping had never fallen into her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out, rolling in a casual day late with another chapter that only relates to the prompt if you squint! Yeehaw.


	3. Flashover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two words: Stakeout makeout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *fist pumping* ONE! DAY! LATE!
> 
> This chapter brought to you by my intense professional ennui, Pinot Noir, and the time-honored principle of 'Write sober, edit drunk' or you know, whatever.

**Chapter Three: Flashover**

 

* * *

 

_She found him in the hall upstairs, looking out of the wide window that overlooked the grounds. Riza had been up for hours - since he’d been here she’d had the best sleep she’d had in a very long time, but last night she’d barely been able to sleep at all, knowing he would be leaving in the morning. If Roy heard her walking up to him, he made no move to turn around. She set a cup of tea on the wide windowsill and he nodded in thanks._

" _I’m going to miss this view,” he told her. “I know I’m a city boy but nothing beats this.”_

 " _You can visit anytime you want,” she said quietly, studying his profile in the sunrise. The view out the window would be there tomorrow but this… she wanted to drink this in. He shook his head._

 " _I’m afraid not for a while. I’m about to become very busy thanks to your father’s research.”_

_“Of course,” she should have known. He was in the military now, and she’d just given him the means to climb higher than he’d thought possible. Hadn’t he told her of his dream? Didn’t she know firsthand of the incredible single-mindedness he had when he wanted something? A hand on the side of her face, gently tilting her chin upward, made her realize she had been staring at the ground through eyes that were watering._

  _“I don’t know how to thank you for trusting me with his research,” he said seriously. As though she’d had a choice. She’d always known who the hours of torment, the ink and the blood were really for. At the time she had withstood it knowing it was for a good cause. Now, looking at Roy’s smile in the dawn light she thought she would gladly do it again._

_“Just… do something great with it,” was all she could think to say._

_“I’ll miss this, you know,” he said after a moment. “I’ll miss y-”_

_Before she could think better of it she stood on her toes, and, one hand twining delicately in his uniform shirt, leaned in to press her lips to his. It was foolish, she knew, for a country girl to entertain feelings for someone like him. A soldier, a scholar. She’d placed him on a pedestal for years and while he would probably always inspire a feeling of awe within her, these past few days he’s reminded her so much of the boy he’d been before he left. He made a noise of surprise and went rigid for a moment, before snaking a hand up her back and into her hair, his other still resting on the side of her face. She gasped slightly against his mouth, pulling him closer, before he abruptly broke the kiss._

_“I’m sorry,” he yelped and she stared in confusion._

_“What for?”_

_“I mean I shouldn’t - it’s wrong to take advantage of you,” she tried her best not to laugh in his face and only half succeeded. “I’m older than you, it’s not, uh, proper.” She would be seventeen just after new years, and he’d only just turned twenty. She hid a smile as she passed him on her way to the stairs._

_“All right then, Mr. Mustang.”_

_“Hey wait, Riza-”_

-x-

“Riza,”

“Lieutenant Havoc,” she replies. She’s half inside of the large closet off the kitchen, pulling out what seems like endless pairs of rain boots, broken umbrellas, boxes of seeds and gardening tools. She’d tried to keep her mother’s garden alive when she was younger but ultimately discovered that she was far better at hunting their dinner than coaxing it out of the ground.

“We’re moving on,” he tells her, duffle bag in hand. “There’s a good amount of road traffic right now, plenty of people out and about.”

“All right,” she says, accepting the hand he offers and extricating herself from the quagmire of miscellaneous things. She’s been encountering a lot of her mother’s old things in this particular closet, untouched for close to two decades now, and she thinks she’s earned a break. “I’ll come outside and see you off.” She brushes the dust off her skirt and trails outside after him, absentmindedly noting the few things in the sitting room that still need cleaning as she goes.

Outside the men are loading the boxes she’s managed to pack so far into the back of the van; their goal is to make it look as though they were a group of friends here to help her transport everything, in case they’re being watched. As she walks out to the front she sees that they are in fact being watched, by Ernst of all people, who stands with his hat in his hands talking to Fuery.

“Look who showed up to talk to you,” Roy mutters to her as she draws near. “Should we stick around?” she waves him off.

“No, it’s suspicious if you do. Just tell your wife-to-be goodbye and get in the car.”

Havoc puts the box he took in the back of the van, closing the doors and hoppin in next to Breda, who looks bored in the driver’s seat but Riza can tell he’s listening intently to the conversation Fuery is having with Ernst, which seems actually to be about a watch.

“So if you can just find someone to tighten that one screw, it should keep time better,” Fuery was saying.

“Well thank you, I’ll keep that in mind - ah, Miss Hawkeye,” he says turning to Riza. “I wondered if I could have a word.”

“Of course,” she says. “I was just coming outside to say goodbye to my fiance and his, ah, friends,” she says, looking at Roy. The slight angle of an eyebrow lets her know he’s already given Ernst their cover story.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” he tells her, sliding an arm around her waist and leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. In the van she sees Havoc look away and she knows he’s laughing. She pushes down the unsettling heat that pools in her stomach and adjusts the collar of his shirt fondly.

“Of course dear. Drive safely,” and she turns back to Ernst, willing the blush to leave her cheeks as Mustang gets into the van and they carefully back out of the long driveway. “What can I do for you?”

“Walk with me?” he inclines his head at the dirt path that half-circles the manor, and she nods, following his lead. They stroll a few yards, him looking around nervously as though for anyone who might be spying on them. “About that letter-”

“So you did write it,” she says, now looking around as well. If Ernst as concerned that someone might be watching them, she will take it seriously as well; and she’s willing to bet her eyes are sharper.

“I did, I confess. But not because I was made aware of a trespassing. You see I was asked to write it. Before you ask I don’t know the man’s identity. Only that he was a state alchemist.”

“I see. How do you know this?” she asks quietly.

“His pocketwatch. I didn’t get a good look at it, only a glimpse when he was - ah, getting something out of his pocket,” Ernst describes vaguely. _So the General was right; you did take a bribe_ , Riza thinks.

“Thank you for alerting me,” she tells him.

“If you’d like I can send someone over,” he offers. “I feel badly about the whole affair. The constable would be happy to stand guard tonight, especially since you’re here alone. Or perhaps you’d like to take a room at the inn? Paid for by the city of course-”

“No, thank you,” she says, hand brushing her thigh holster as they walk up to the house. “I’ll be just fine.”

 

-x-

 

“A state alchemist?” Havoc says as he loads his rifle later that night. They’d parked off the road about ten minutes away and came back on foot after it got dark, slipping around the back of the house and through the kitchen door. “How likely is that, exactly?”

“Not very,” Roy muses, from where he’s perched on a high stool at the kitchen counter, watching everyone prepare their assorted equipment, ignition gloves barely peeking out of the top of his pocket. Fuery hands out small portable handheld radios and they all clip them to their belts. Riza adjusts her shoulder holster, uncomfortable with how it feels over her civilian clothes. “But it’s possible I suppose. We’ll just have to catch him and find out.”

“What I don’t understand is why he wanted Hawkeye to be in the house,”” Breda is saying, a hand on his chin as he stares out the darkened window. “You’re not an alchemist, even if your father was.”

“Yes but in theory I might know how the sausage gets made,” Riza points out bitterly. Whoever this alchemist was, he seemed to know too much for comfort.

“So Breda and I will take the ground floor, Havoc the attic, and you two upstairs, right?” Fuery affirms, a large electronic box in hand. He set up a few bugs on the way back from the van, and is going to be monitoring them for any noises that might indicate an intruder is approaching.

“Right,” Mustang says, standing up and stretching slightly. “Let’s go.”

Upon reaching the second floor landing, they part ways, both sticking to the shadows, creeping along the familiar hallways of the house. Riza passes her old bedroom as well as her father’s with a slight shiver. Strange that she should feel most affected by the past at a time when she needed more than anything to remain present. Inwardly shaking off the cobwebs in her mind, she prowls on.

It’s a couple of hours in when she realizes she hadn’t crossed paths with the General. Her radio has been silent, which is all in all good news, but they normally keep the same pace; one of them is off - unlikely - or else wandering. She changes direction and crosses out of her cluster of hallways back towards the landing.

She finds him upstairs, by the big window. It’s dark now, of course, and she can’t see anything out in the grounds. Moonlight streams in, anointing him in a silvery light. She reaches out without thinking to pull him gently away from the window.

“If anyone sees you it blows our cover,” she says quietly, the two of them tucked into a corner of the landing. He shakes his head.

“I should have thought of that. It’s this house, sometimes… It’s like I never completely left.”

“I know the feeling,” she tells him wryly, and he looks up.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I know.”

They’re quiet for a moment, her hand still clutching his sleeve. Belatedly she lets go, and he breathes in unsteadily, running a hand through his already untidy hair, as if bracing himself for something uncomfortable. She lets him. Something about standing here once more, on the pyre of their youth and innocence, makes nothing seem as real as it did in Central.  

“Do you remember the last time we were both standing here?”

“Of course,” she says, smiling fondly at the memory. “We were so young.” They had no idea what was going to happen to them, what destruction would take place at their hands.

“We were honest,” his hand cups her cheek, one thumb stroking softly and suddenly, though it’s the middle of the night and the old house is frigid for the want of a fire, her nerves are set ablaze by his hand pressed to the side of her face. Her heart pounds in her chest and she suddenly feels like a pot that’s about to boil over.

“General-” her word of warning is only halfhearted at best, but she finds she can’t look away from his eyes boring into hers.

“Riza,”

Some wall inside of her crumbles upon hearing him speak her name. Before she can register what she’s doing, her hands are on his chest, pressing him against the wall as she leans up to claim his lips with her own. There’s only a second of hesitation from him before his hands are on her waist, pulling her flush against him as he runs his tongue across her lower lip experimentally and she yields, mouth opening hungrily against his.  Her hands begin working on the buttons of his shirt of their own volition while his make short work of her hair clip. She’s seen fires before, plenty of them, enough to last a lifetime. But she’s never felt so utterly engulfed in flame.

They manage to make it down the hall without knocking anything over, and before she knows it they’re in his old room. She falls against the mattress and sits up to see him gently closing the door. She takes a few deep breaths and tries to have a moment of clarity: this is a _stakeout_ , they’re technically at _work-_

All thoughts of work leave her mind as he crawls up her body, and she entangles her hands in his hair, now thoroughly mussed. Delicately, as if he’s handling something fragile, he lifts her shirt from where it meets the top of her skirt and kisses above her hip bone, mouth hot against her skin and she gasps. Encouraged, he dips his head lower, fumbling with the buttons on her skirt impatiently.

“Sir, this is a stakeout, we should be quiet,” she protests weakly.

“I can be quiet,” he murmurs into the skin below her bellybutton. “Can you?”

“ _No,_ ” she pants, and he stops, looking up at her. She can barely see Roy’s expression in the dim light, and presses a hand to his cheek. He sighs, and crawls up the bed until they’re side by side.

“Clearly we need to have a talk,” he says finally, and this at last draws a smile from her that almost becomes a chuckle before she claps her hand over her mouth.

“Clearly! It’s my fault,” she admits, when she gets control over herself, looking up at the ceiling. The faint moonlight gives everything in the room a soft glow. “I forgot myself.”

“Ah yes, after much convincing and a long debate I finally conceded to toss you on the bed and attempt to have my way with you,” he jokes, but his voice is serious. “This has been a long time coming. Since The Promised Day, if not earlier.” The Promised Day made this inevitable, she thinks, but she’s loved him silently, from a distance, for years. And a volcano can only stay dormant for so long.

“This isn’t the time or place to discuss… this,” she waves vaguely and he catches her hand, bringing it to his mouth to trail kisses over each of her fingers.

“Correct as usual, Captain,” he releases her hand and rolls over to give her one last lingering kiss that makes her melt into the old duvet, before getting up and crossing to the door. She hastily sits up, smoothing her skirt and hair, as he opens it carefully, peering out before he opens it fully. Seeing that the coast is clear, both of interlopers and of their teammates, he gives her a nod and she follows him back into the hall. They separate once more, each returning to their respective territory.


	4. Pinned

**Chapter Four: Pinned**

* * *

 

Riza slips into the attic as the sky is beginning to lighten. 

If anyone were breaking in tonight then surely they would have done so by this point; leaving her post a little while early makes no difference now and besides, the General is still on the second story. The thought of Roy makes a blush creep into her face - perfect, just what she needs, to turn red like a schoolgirl with a crush every time she thinks of her commanding officer. She wasn’t even this ridiculous when she had been an actual schoolgirl with a crush. But this is different, she thinks, in that this is so far beyond a simple crush. She isn’t ready yet to put the appropriate name to it, but she’s felt temptation, knows the feel of his hands on her skin, knows she wasn’t strong enough to fight it and won’t be again. Her bond with Mustang has always been a time bomb and now comes the aftermath; the debris and the damage. 

Havoc, in the middle of a wide yawn, looks up as she enters the room, and she promptly shelves all thoughts of her complicated relationship with her commanding officer. 

“What’s up?” He asks her. He’s sprawled out with his back to the wall of the small space, rifle propped up next to him. There are only a few boxes in the floored space, with many more piled precariously in the beams beyond. She pauses as she enters, hearing distant voices, and raises an eyebrow. “That’s Fuery and Breda, the sound carries through the vents.” Of course; she’d forgotten how she used to come up to try and listen in when her father first started teaching Roy. She’d stopped once she realized how boring the lessons were. She can’t hear what they’re saying though; the downstairs bedroom where they set up must be too far away; too many turns in the pipes would distort and weaken the sound. 

She wanders over and peers into a box and stands up straight again when she realizes it’s full of clothes. Of course; the bulk of her mother’s belongings would be up here. She makes a mental note to come back up here to retrieve all the thankfully pre-packed items. 

“I think our stakeout is a bust,” she tells Havoc, taking a seat on the floor and he shrugs, taking it in stride. 

“Kind of a longshot anyway, wasn’t it?” he stretches, no doubt stiff from sitting by the attic window all night; at least she’d gotten to move around during their unsuccessful stakeout. “I’m guessing we’ll head out for real today and leave you to your packing.” she nods, thinking of all the work still left to be done. 

“I can’t say I minded the company,” she tells him softly.

“You know Captain, it’s none of my business but … this place isn’t exactly full of happy memories for you, is it?” Jean consistently manages to surprise her by being perceptive despite his reputation (and admittedly disposition) for being something of a blockhead.

“What tipped you off?” she asks him, expression carefully neutral. 

“You just seem tense. And you being tense makes the boss tense, which makes all of the rest of us tense, kind of like a chain reaction.” This is true enough, she knows, although she feels that the tension the team picks up from Mustang isn’t entirely due to her. 

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him, standing up and brushing the dust off her skirt. “It’ll probably only be a few more days of work and then I can put this place behind me. Maybe once I sell the land I’ll even buy a townhouse in Central,” she muses. “I’m going back downstairs, let’s give it another hour and then meet up back in the kitchen.” He nods his understanding as she goes to leave the room.

“Oh and Hawkeye?” he calls after her. 

She turns around, a hand on the doorframe. “Yes?”

“Next time you decide to break every frat law on the books, you might wanna make sure the room you’re in doesn’t have a vent that leads directly to the attic where your subordinate is stationed.” 

Horrified, Riza stares at him. 

“Look, Havoc, I don’t know what you think you heard but I-“ she begins, and he waves a hand dismissively, a smirk playing across his face. 

“I won’t tell anyone. As it stands right now if I give you away, Breda wins the betting pool.” 

“There’s a betting pool?” She asks in disbelief. “You were _betting_ we’d break the law?” 

“We all bet right, didn’t we?” He reasons.

“That’s not-” she sighs, looking up at the ceiling, willing it to crash in on the both of them, and counts to five before looking back at him. “It was a mistake and it won’t be happening again. Will you promise to keep quiet?” 

“Of course,” he says, and she can tell he means it. “But as for it not happening again, I don’t suppose you’d want to bet on that because it sure _sounded_ like things were left kinda unresolved-”

She rolls her eyes and walks out of the attic without a word. She would never say as much to Havoc but she isn’t sure that would be a bet she’d win.

 

-x-

 

Once the sun has crept up above the horizon they reconvene tiredly in the kitchen. Riza manages to find some tea, which Breda claims doesn’t ever _really_ expire, and they sip at the bitter brew quietly as the sun rises. 

“So I think we can catch a few hours sleep and then head out again.” Mustang says, leafing through a newspaper from 1903 he’s unearthed from somewhere. 

“Sounds good boss,” Breda tells him, stretching in his seat. “I’m not as young as I used to be - these all-nighters get to me.” 

“I actually picked  up a little activity off the road last night,” Fuery mentions, sipping his tea and then making a face. “It was so faint I can’t tell if it was human or animal but I’ll see if I can’t amplify it and find anything from that.” Havoc rises from his seat, covering his mouth as he yawns hugely. 

“Great, I’ll be on the sofa.”

“I’ll be on the other sofa,” Breda echoes, already standing and collecting their empty mugs.

“You know there are multiple guest rooms in this house,” Riza tells them. 

“Someone’s gotta be the first line of defense. You all get distracted too easily,” Havoc tells her. She barely catches the grin on his face before he heads out of the room. Riza rolls her eyes as everyone disperses, and, to preoccupied for sleep, walks up the stairs and down the hall she was patrolling - or supposed to be patrolling - last night. 

She’s managed to make some headway in the house - apart from the study, which she abandoned soon after entering. _Baby steps_ , she thinks. The largest room in the house is down a short hallway lined with nothing but now-empty linen closets. She has vague memories of it from early childhood; it used to be her parents room, before her mother died. After, her father took up residence downstairs, in one of the guest rooms, and lived his life as though the other levels of the house didn’t exist. As if her mother had never existed. As if Riza didn’t exist. 

The room is mostly stripped: she’s left the curtains and matching bedclothes for the next owner to keep or dispose of, and has cleared the closet. All that’s left is an old writing desk that she intends to leave with the house. She looked inside yesterday and sure enough it remains untouched because it was her mother’s writing desk. She doesn’t have the time to go through the contents so she’s settled on methodically putting everything into a box. This is one box, however, that she intends to keep. 

There’s a knock at the door and she starts; the methodical shifting was going well until she encountered a picture of herself as a toddler, sitting in their garden as it once was, her father crouching next to her, smiling. She’d seen it and realized she didn’t have any memories of him smiling that weren’t of the dreamlike surreal quality that memories take on when they could be from early childhood, or else entirely imaginary. 

“Come in,” she chokes and she sounds as bad as she feels. The door opens and a dark head peeks around the corner. 

Of course it’s him. 

“Captain,” he says slowly, slipping into the room and almost-shutting the door behind him. “Is - are you-” 

He doesn’t finish because to her horror a tear escapes and rolls down her cheek. She instinctively turns away, scrubbing at her face as she does so. 

“Just packing!” 

“Riza-”

“Don’t, it’s… this was never going to be easy.” He sinks to the floor next to her, far enough for them not to be touching but only barely. “There’s a reason this house stood untouched for so long,” she says finally, tilting her head up to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to stay with - in Central, I wanted to be useful and _wanted_ , like I wasn’t here. I wanted to matter.” 

His hand curls around hers, slowly, and she lets it. 

“Sometimes men can be so singularly brilliant that the concept of kindness doesn’t occur to them,” Roy muses. “Runs on both sides of your family I think, lucky you.” 

“Lucky me,” she breathes, thumb stroking the skin of his hand. “And I know what you’re-”

“I’m going to say it anyway,” he interjects, dark eyes meeting hers. “I-”

She leans forward to kiss him, effectively cutting him off. Riza isn’t ready to hear that from him; it’s too newly out in the open, though his actions - _their_ actions, have been speaking for them for years. This is, she knows, all her fault anyway: she broke their unspoken oath never to touch each other like this. But it’s not as if he’s resisting, and as he snakes a hand around her waist to pull her closer and threads his fingers through her hair she thinks maybe this was inevitable from the start, that the events of The Promised Day only served to chip away at their already weakening defenses. 

They break apart at the same time, and she thinks she sees a flash of a mischievous grin before he stands up and pulls her to her feet, leading them both to the bed. 

“Sir,” she cautions, and he slides onto the mattress, patting the space next to him. 

“Come on, Hawkeye; I’m exhausted. You must be too.” She is, and she sits without another word, and then allows him to draw her down to the mattress. She turns into him as he settles an arm across her waist and it’s so comforting she doesn’t entertain the idea of telling him not to because they can easily be walked in on. 

“We still need to have that talk,” she murmurs, eyes already closed, and he presses a kiss into the top of her head. 

“Of course. Later.” 

 

-x-

 

“General? Hawkeye? We - oh.”

Riza’s eyes flutter open and she tries to sit up but quickly finds that at some point during their nap Mustang had also flung a leg across her body and worked his other arm underneath her, effectively locking her in his embrace. Her face heats up instantly.

“You know what, I can come back later,” Breda is saying from the doorway. “Take your time, ah, extricating yourself.” 

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Riza says, working a hand free to shake the General’s shoulder. 

“I’d call your bluff if it wasn’t for that one time we were camping outside of Youswell and I woke up in pretty much the same position you’re in now,” he admitted, the initial shock in his face turning to amusement. “Not the leg though, that must be new.” 

“What time is it?” Roy asks groggily, rolling away from her and sitting up.

“Half-past noon, sir. We’d better get a move on.” 

And move on they do. This time Riza watches their departure from the large window upstairs, as they walk off into the woods to where the car is concealed down the road. With a sigh, she takes her mug of tea - not terrible, if you didn’t mind a slight dusty taste - and makes her way up to the attic.  

 

-x-

 

_One day while her father was taking one of his few breaks from his work, she slipped into the study. She wasn’t sure what it was she expected to find; certainly not Roy, gone for months now. Nevertheless it was him she thought of as she walked around the small room, fingers grazing the spines of the old books that lined the walls. They were clearly all alchemy tomes; when she was very little she used to pull them down and pretend to read from them, to her father’s amusement._

_“Well now, I haven’t seen you set foot in this room in years.”_

_She whirled around, terrified to see her father standing in the doorway, looking exactly as weary as he had when he’d gone down the hall to rest._

_“I’m sorry, I-” she began, and he waved a hand, silencing her._

_“Why the sudden interest in my study?”_

_She didn’t have an answer for that. They both knew that she had no aptitude for alchemy: a failing she was certain her father was still bitter about, though he hadn’t said as much in years. Alchemy had been the source of many arguments between them, and Riza had hated the concept for a long time but at some point, through the months and years of walking home from school listening to Roy ramble about what he’d learned that day, or helping him study, or occasionally watch him perform a transmutation she found she’d grown almost fond of it. She didn’t understand it, but something about his enthusiasm for the subject had endeared it to her._

_She’d never thought the day would come when alchemical sigils would be a source of nostalgia and comfort._

_“Would you like to be a part of my research?” he asked finally, after a long moment of silence. She looked up at his thoughtful face, wondering what use she could possibly be to him._

_“What would I need to do?”_

_“My secrets need a keeper,” he mused, stepping into the room. “I won’t live forever to guard them, so I need to pass on my flame alchemy to someone who will keep it safe from falling into the wrong hands.”_

_“But I can’t use it,” she told him. “I wouldn’t understand it.” She was also a little afraid of this elemental alchemy he’d spent most of her life obsessed with. She hesitated before venturing a suggestion, “Wouldn’t Mr. Mustang be a better person to give it to?”_

_“I can’t be sure of him,” her father replied dismissively._

But I can _, Riza thought. Roy worked so hard, he deserved to learn his master’s secrets. It wasn’t his fault that her father had high standards - no one could really live up to them, and she knew that firsthand._

_“Why not?” was what she asked._

_“He’s too eager,” her father answered finally. “I don’t know if he understands the full weight of the responsibility. But you will, my serious girl.”_

_She did. She had been living in the shadow of alchemy and academia her whole life, so much so that until a certain apprentice of her father’s had showed up, she’d altogether forgotten how to have fun. But she saw clearly now that the clouds had only uncovered the sun for a short time. And she would have plenty of time, lying on a table in excruciating pain while the symbols were indelibly etched into her skin, to let the gravity of the situation sink in._

Riza gives one last hard look at the study before closing the door, locking it, and placing the key in her pocket. She has grown so accustomed to self-flagellation on the matter - what she should have done differently when handed the heavy burden of flame alchemy, how she could have prevented what happened in Ishval - that she hasn’t considered that it should never have been her burden to bear. She had accepted it willingly, but she had been a _child_ , desperately seeking the approval of a parent who was absent in mind if not in body. 

As she stalks across the house to the room she’d been packing when the sudden desire to enter the study had come over her, she thinks angrily that she was manipulated. Not just to take up the mantle of the research, but her father had to have known she would give the array to Roy. He didn’t know if Roy was the right choice, and had tried to absolve himself, even though giving her the sigils was fundamentally the same thing as passing them on to his apprentice himself. He had known exactly what he was doing: presenting her with a choice that was no choice at all. 

She was wrong; she does need Mustang’s help after all. She’ll ask him to come here and burn the room out entirely, until nothing remains of the research notes, the books, the smell. Until nothing remains of her burden. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I'm still working on this! It's been an interesting exercise in writing a chaptered work as well as flying by the seat of my pants and I'm absolutely tickled that so many people have been enjoying it so far! As usual I apologize for any continuity/spelling/grammatical errors in this unbeta-d mess.


	5. Trapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo yeah, I changed the prompt order, oops. I think part of why this chapter took me so long is because I was trying to make it work with the prompts in the listed order and not listening to the weird weird plant my little fic has become. (Also I'm juggling like four WIPs currently which means constantly tinkering and notttt actually posting a whole lot, who knew)

**Chapter Five: Trapped**

* * *

 

Come nightfall she tries to sleep on the couch, which seems the most promising spot given her limited success two nights ago. After tossing and turning - when did the clock become so unbearably loud? - she finds herself walking up the stairs seemingly aimlessly, until she’s back in the room that used to be Roy’s. She takes a moment to stand in the window, looking out at the moon lighting the tops of the trees and the lawn and the path she used to walk long ago, before she chose another path entirely. Settling down on top of the bed she imagines it still smells faintly of him and drifts off more quickly than she would have thought possible. 

When she awakens suddenly the moonlight has shifted, and there are noises in the hall. 

Silently she rolls off the bed, hitting the wood floor noiselessly, grateful for the old carpet that still sits under the bed that muffles the faint thud of her stocking feet hitting the floor. Someone is creeping in the hall. Someone is not as stealthy as they think. Two someones, she amends, pulling her sidearm from the holster at her back and holding her breath to catch the faint scuffling as they move along. When they enter the room in a burst of noise and light (what kind of burglars bring a _flashlight_ , she thinks in annoyance) she’s ready, neatly grazing the shin of one and then the thigh of the other. They’re bleeding profusely with superficial wounds when she gets to her feet, having taken the cord off the curtain, and sweeps the feet out from the slower one with her leg. The other thunders down the stairs and she pays him no mind, flipping this one onto his back, her knee digging into his spine as she wraps the cord tightly around his wrists. 

“Who sent you?” she asks, guessing that this wiry man in threadbare clothing isn’t here to rob her of his own volition. The house is in disrepair and everyone knows her family was all but destitute by the end. 

“Bitch!” he spits, and she sighs, digging her knee in further as he lets out an involuntary yell against the carpet; he can answer or he can crack a rib. 

“What is your name?” she tries instead and this time he gasps out an answer. 

“Johnson,” he gasps. “Frank Johnson, and that’s all you’ll get, I hope it’s satisfactory.”

She gets to her feet, dragging him up with her, just as Fuery comes thundering into the room, gun drawn. 

“Captain, are you hurt?” 

“No,” she replies. “Did you get the other one?”

They did, as it happens, and he’s tied to a chair in the kitchen by the time they get downstairs. Havoc has his weapon drawn but looks unconcerned; the colonel has a single white glove on and an impassive expression that would be unreadable to everyone but her, and Breda is eating an apple noisily while regarding the robber with a stony expression. Their second captive’s face is nearly the same color as the glove that he eyes warily while he sings like a canary.

“-said there might be one woman in the house, didn’t say _anything_ about the damn Hero of Ishval being here! This is well above my pay grade if you ask me-” 

“Well did he mention that the woman was the country’s most renowned sharpshooter?” Roy is saying dryly. “You’d think that would be pertinent information. Hawkeye, are you all right?” 

“Fine, sir,” she says, depositing Frank in a chair next to the other man. No one bothers tying him up. 

“Good. Well, now you are both going to tell me what you were intending to do with my Captain,” he directs at the two men, expression dark as he fingers the end of his ignition glove with his other hand. “And I’d choose your words carefully.” 

“We weren’t to hurt her,” Frank volunteers, “Just ah, apprehend her.” 

“Idiots,” Breda mutters, rolling his eyes, and Riza appreciates this. She gives a quick half-smile as his eyes flicker to hers and he grins widely, taking another bite of the apple. 

“Sir,” she interjects, but Roy is already standing from his perch on a barstool tugging on his glove reflexively. 

“And _why_ , exactly, were you sent to apprehend her?” 

“Look,” the other man says, speaking up at last, “We weren’t told the specifics - clearly, or else we’d have been more prepared. I mean we haven’t even talked to this guy in the flesh-”

“ _General_ ,” she cuts in, loudly enough that he turns to look at her. “What if they did apprehend me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out-”

“No, I mean suppose I go with them, and see what this criminal mastermind wants,” she suggests. Roy’s brow furrows.

“Absolutely _not_.”

“I dunno boss, that’s a pretty solid plan. She goes in as bait, with us as backup. We find out what exactly this person’s endgame is, and then we take them down,” Breda reasons, apple discarded as he carefully and conspicuously cleans his own gun, an action that Riza is certain isn’t altogether necessary but helps to set the mood. 

“I’ll go ahead, find a vantage point, it’ll be safe as can be,” Havoc volunteers. Fuery is looking curiously at Roy, gun still in the arm that hands slack at his side. 

“Sorry if this sounds insubordinate, sir, but since when do _you_ not think the Captain can take care of herself?” he asks in a quiet voice. Riza cocks an eyebrow at the General and Havoc’s face lights up. 

“An excellent point,” he says. “Why wouldn’t you trust _your own bodyguard_ in this very important capacity?” They have him there. Roy is regarding his Lieutenant with a mixture of confusion and annoyance when Riza turns to Frank, hands on her hips. 

“You’re going to take me to whoever this person is.” 

“That’s it, you’re just gonna untie us and come willingly?” The other man asks incredulously. “You’ll be making our job real easy, thanks for that.”

“They really have _no_ idea who they were trying to kidnap,” Breda mutters. “You’ll want to watch your mouth when you’re talking to a lady with five guns on her person.” 

-x-

_“Hmm,”_

_Riza lifted her head from where it had been laying on her arms and turned slightly at the sound of Roy’s hum behind her. She was sprawled out on one of the couches in the parlor, him seated in a chair next to her with pen and paper, mapping out the intricate tattoo that fanned out across her back. It was late afternoon on the second day of this study and she’d been dozing as he worked in silence._

_“What?” she asked when he didn’t elaborate. “Find something interesting?”_

_“It’s all interesting,” he said earnestly. “I’ve been trying to sketch it first and worry about figuring it all out later but sometimes pieces just catch my eye.” She knew perfectly well that he hadn’t been diligently sketching for two days - for one thing it had been two days, and while it was a complicated array it wasn’t_ that _complicated. For another, the sound of his pencil scratching against the paper was often punctuated by long moments of silence while he contemplated whatever he had written down. She, in no hurry to end the process, hadn’t said anything, content to bask in the dreamy autumn sunlight and his presence._

_“I don’t know anything about it,” she confessed. “I’m just the human sketchbook.” She didn’t mean for it to sound bitter but to her ears it was petulant, and she bit her lip in annoyance. She started as his fingertips brushed along her shoulder blade, down towards her spine. He had barely touched her during the whole process, excepting the few times he reached out without thinking. Riza didn’t know how to tell him she didn’t mind._

_In a way the past few days felt like she was fulfilling the destiny her father set for her; a path she was bound to take regardless of what her own wishes might be. Her father told her that she was to guard his secrets and disclose them to a worthy alchemist who conspicuously remained nameless. In the years to follow she wondered, many times, if he saw her as some being of judgement, placed in his life to choose a worthy successor, instead of a very human daughter who only craved love and support. She saw herself as a train on a track, chugging steadily towards the only possible destination. Riza had been frustrated at times by her apparent lack of options but if the September sun, the worn, comfortable furniture, and the dark-haired man she trusted above all others constructed a prison, it was one she would have gladly spent the rest of her days in._

_But the tattoo was only so big. She knew her days in the sun were numbered._

_“It’s - I’m not done yet by any means, but considering this is flame alchemy we’re talking about I had wondered why there’s so much to do with air. It makes sense of course: fires are controlled by oxygen flow, among other things. But this part seems to indicate that a spark or some existing source of fire is needed.”_

_Riza half rolled over, holding the pillow to her chest as she turned to look at him. He snatched his hand back as she did so, turning pink as if just now realizing he was touching her._

_“So it’s not about creating fire at all - it’s about controlling and directing it.”_

_“Exactly. I guess I’m just surprised, considering the secrecy surrounding it. There really is no such thing as creating fire from alchemy-”_

_“A spark has to already exist,” she finished. His eyes traveled up her body from the array to settle on hers, before quickly flicking back down to his notebook._

_“It’s getting late, we can stop for the day if you want to,” he said. She turned her head and nestled her cheek back into the pillow, letting her eyes close as she breathed in deeply._

_“No,” she told him. “I’m fine where I am.”_

-x-

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me what this is all about?” She asks as they lead her away from the old house and down the sloping lawn towards the forest. The moonlight illuminates the grounds a little, and she’s always had exceptional night vision, but she doesn't see anything ahead but trees. In fact unless things have drastically changed she knows for a fact that there’s nothing ahead but trees; not for five, six miles when they’d run into the O’Connell’s lands. But she doubts they’re taking her there, somehow. Wherever they’re headed is somewhere in the woods - _her_ woods.

“Course not,” Aldman - she was able to get a name, at least - tells her almost cheerfully. “Not my business, anyhow. You’ll find out soon enough.” 

“What’s in it for you?”  

“Money, of course,” he responds. 

“Yeah, all Rainer wants is the alchemy, he said. We get anything of material value,” Frank supplies, and Aldman nudges him hard in the ribs as Riza lets out a quiet laugh. 

“Anything of value? Sorry to disappoint you but there’s nothing there, alchemy or otherwise,” she lies. Well not _quite_ a lie - everything she’s found so far of her mother’s jewelry is gone from the house already, given to the General this afternoon for safekeeping. 

“What do you mean by that?” Frank asks sharply.

“What, do you think I would have left gold bricks in the house for fifteen years while I survived off an army salary? Unless you collect antique armoires, I hope this Rainer person has something else to pay you off with.” More than threats of shooting or incineration, _this_ seems to give them pause. It’s one thing to be darkly informed that harming a hair on Riza’s head will result in immediate immolation but quite another to realize one might not get paid for a job one has mostly completed. 

“No more talking,” Aldman growls, jabbing her with the one pistol they have between them, and she rolls her eyes in the darkness. “We’re nearly there anyhow.” 

Riza peers through the trees, searching for any kind of a structure, or even a _person_ , but still sees nothing, nothing but trees growing thickly around them. Aldman and Frank hang back and she balks, but starts walking again at a nudge from the pistol, though she walks slowly, scanning the forest carefully. She used to play in these woods as a child, but the same trees now seem unfamiliar, and despite her assurance that these criminals are blundering fools, faintly menacing in the near-darkness. 

She’s almost past the tree when she sees the transmutation circle, carved into the bark just below eye level. 

Riza digs her heels in and whirls around, reaching for her own gun concealed at the small of her back and as she does so she sees the same mark on another tree, feet away; she’d been about to walk between them. 

“What is this?” she demands, pointing her gun at Aldman, who is pointing his right back at her. 

“Keep walking,” he orders her and she decides all bets are off. Before she can yell for backup Frank moves faster than she thought he had the ability to, ducking under her gun and slamming into her midsection. She falls backwards, and has the wind knocked out of her as she hits the floor. She rolls, gasping, and jumps to her feet, pulling her gun up-

Only to find she’s aiming at her own back. 

She sees herself suspended between the trees, arms stretched out to either side, mid-fall, for all the world like an insect caught in a spiderweb. The two men on the other side look about as surprised as she feels, Frank stepping forward to look at her face while Aldman grins, gun lowering. She holds up her hands and finds they have an odd, transparent quality to them, and sinks to her knees. The forest floor makes no noise as she settles onto it. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” Frank is saying. “Rainer wrote ‘just get her through the trees’ and he’d take care of the rest but I wasn’t expecting this. Now what, we leave her? How do we get our cut with all those soldiers swarming the mansion anyway?” Aldman doesn’t answer, but lifts his pistol and puts a bullet between Frank’s eyes. The other man drops like a stone, and Aldman walks through the pair of trees purposefully, stepping out of his own body as though it was as comfortable as slipping off a pair of shoes. 

Riza rises slowly to her feet, doing her best to ignore the yelling as Havoc and Fuery descend on the scene, guns drawn - she supposes that whatever she is now, they won’t be able to help her; their yelling sounds muffled, as though she’s hearing it from beneath several inches of water.

“What did you do to me?” she asks him. The pistol is a comforting weight in her hand, though she knows it won’t do much for her now, a shade of its former self. Just like her. Fuery takes off running back towards the house while Havoc inches towards her, delicately holding a hand up to her neck, feeling for a pulse. She turns her back on the whole scene, not wanting to see who Fuery would inevitably bring back. She doesn’t want to see the look on Roy’s face when he sees her hanging there. 

“You’re not an alchemist,” he shrugs. “It’ll go over your head.”

“Try me,” she challenges. This feels like a test of some kind and from the way he grins, she feels both that she’s somehow passed and that this isn’t a good thing. There is one thing that she knows to be a universal truth about all alchemists; each and every one of them is at one point convinced that he alone understands the idiosyncrasies of the universe. She suspects that this is that moment for Aldman - Rainer, whoever - but she knows that like all the others, his moment of hubris shall be fleeting. Her grip tightens. 

“Oh it’s impressive,” he tells her. “You see there’s a little trick I know - one that the military wasn’t much interested in when they learned the restrictions-”

“Let me guess, the restrictions involve you needing to seperate my consciousness from my body,” she says flatly. He doesn’t flinch away from her furious glare - with her being incorporeal, there isn’t a reason to. 

“And I thought you were just the muscle and Mustang was the brains of the operation,” he purrs. “But unfortunately yes.”

“Well it can’t be permanent,” she says. “Or else you’d be trapped here with me.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he tells her, fishing out a pendant necklace from a string around his neck. The pendant is an oval of beaten copper, and she can see a sigil etched into the metal. “I’ve taken precautions. I don’t think that I can say the same for you; I just needed to isolate your subconscious so we could really delve into things.”

“So I’m asleep,” she surmises, looking back at her prone body suspended between the trees. Three figures are running full-tilt from the house and she turns away again, taking an unsteady, shallow breath before she continues. “Should be easy enough to wake me.” 

“Closer to a coma, so think again,” he corrects her. 

“ _CAPTAIN!!_ ” The anguished cry breaks through whatever barrier hangs between her and her team as the men skid to a halt before the tree. Breda ducks to check Frank and Havoc waves him away, as Fuery prods at Aldman - Rainer - and her General walks up to where she hangs limply, lifting a hand and hesitantly holding it to her face, his confident mask briefly dropping to show a man utterly lost. Riza makes herself turn away. 

“You haven’t explained what you want from me that you couldn’t get from me while awake,” she says, and he fishes around in his pocket, finally pulling out what seems to be a photograph. 

“Think of it as being a little like hypnosis,” he explains. “But more hands on, a touch more visceral. We’re going to sift through your memories together.” She doesn’t like the sound of this one bit - sifting through her memories isn’t something she even cares to do alone. But she can’t see that she has much choice at all in the matter -  she’s been forced from her body and stands as a shade in front of him, the General calling to her behind her back, and there is nowhere to go. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone liking and reviewing this, it really means a lot to get such a positive response when I'm trying something new and flying by the seat of my pants and feeling largely insecure about the whole thing! You all really keep me motivated to continue and I appreciate it so much.


	6. Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws open windows*
> 
> The spirits have done it all in one night! *
> 
> .
> 
> .
> 
> *four months
> 
> Disclaimer: I, as usual, have no idea what I'm doing. Enjoy!

**Chapter Six: Revival**

The clearing is still, and Riza notices that even the usually centering sensation of her own breath is absent.

“Let’s meet this fascinating father of yours,” Rainer says, and she can tell he’s focusing intently on something. There’s a transmutation circle on the back of the photograph, she realizes suddenly. He’s tapped into her subconscious through the circles on the trees, and now he’s somehow forcing her thoughts to generate a particular memory. It must all be linked. She realizes too late she’s said all this aloud when her train of thought is interrupted. 

“Astute, considering you’ve never had an aptitude for alchemy,” a voice comes from the darkness, and Riza’s blood runs cold. 

“What do you want from me, exactly?” she asks, ignoring the shade of her father as he steps into the middle of the clearing from seemingly nowhere but in reality from the dark depths of memory. He’s as he was not when she saw him last - frail and dying, confined to his bed - but as he was during Roy’s tutelage. He is stern and sinewy, but with a spark still in his gray eyes. Interesting that this is the version of her father that the transmutation brought forth - him at his most content. “If you think you’re getting anything out of me about alchemy-”

“Well that’s where I have a slight confession to make,” Rainer tells her. “You may have been under the impression that I’m here to extract some information from you, correct?”

“That’s usually what an interrogation entails,” she says warily, hand on her gun even though there’s no reason to believe it will do any good. 

“Do you know - well, you couldn’t possibly,” he amends. “I tried to become a State Alchemist. Several times, of course, as most do, but I’ll never forget the first attempt. It must have been 1905, 1906 when I came to Central City with my dreams and notes. ‘The Slumber Alchemist’, that’s what they’d call me. My skills weren’t as fine-tuned then as they are now but nevertheless, I put all of the Fuhrer’s guards to sleep in minutes. The only problem was that they woke up again.”

“So you needed to figure out a way to keep them asleep,” Bethold fills in, and Riza looks at him aghast, because that was the thought already forming in her mind. But of course he’s only an echo, he isn’t real, and she needs to stay sharp and learn what Rainer wants from her. 

She hopes that he does in fact want something, as she’s officially in over her head. 

“Correct,” he continues smoothly. “So I did that, and came back, and was rejected again. And again. But what really stuck out to me the first time was that nobody even paid attention to my admittedly underwhelming show. No, they were all talking amongst themselves and I later discovered why - the man directly before me had done something unprecedented, flashy, and with great potential.” Riza’s mouth is dry and she squeezes her eyes shut. “Yes, someone had conjured fire from thin air.” 

She turns around, thinking the very sight of the General will reassure her but there’s no one but Havoc, standing at parade rest, hands crossed over his gun as though he’s at ease although she can tell even from here that every muscle in his body is tense, alert. The hairs on her arms stand on end as she realizes that something happened outside of her dream bubble, something drew the others away. Havoc is her guard, although she knows that the only thing she needs to be guarded from is in here with her. 

“What do you want?” She asks again, venomously, when she turns back around. “I’m no alchemist. Even this trick,” she gestures vaguely at Berthold, “isn’t going to make me able to tell you something I don’t know.”

“I went back to Central City six months ago,” he continues, as though he hadn’t heard. “To try again with the new regime. And do you know what I was told?” She does, as it happens, or at least she can guess, but she waits for him to continue. “I was told that they are taking on no more State Alchemists. That during peacetime, they are only giving grants to very select branches of research, biomedical and the like, but that State Alchemists are being phased out.” 

“And so you’re getting revenge on everyone who was given the title,” she says bitterly, and he smiles, mouth closed, eyes unchanging. 

“I’m helping to phase them out.” 

“Those other homes that were broken into,” she says, “you killed them.” She hadn’t heard of a death in any of the team’s reports, but it’s possible they weren’t informed. 

“Not quite,” he counters. “I simply did this,” and he gestures towards her body, suspended mid-fall, and she understands in a flash. “If they were all such brilliant, capable alchemists then surely they would be able to free themselves from a simple transmutation net? Alas, none of them have succeeded. I wonder if your Flame Alchemist will be able to?” Riza can’t help it, she draws her gun and holds it up, shaking although her hands do not waver. 

“He’ll never fall for something like this,” she hisses. 

“I thought that too, at first, but chances are greater if he’s thrown off by something like, say, his right hand woman being incapacitated,” and there it is. She’s a pawn, again, in the General’s undoing. “He may be a great alchemist but what good is he really when his adjutant is locked in her own mind, tormented by her demons.” She drops her weapon entirely and it vanishes before it hits the floor, no longer tethered to reality by her touch. This is not the first time she has been used against him, and if they get out of this, she knows it won’t be the last. 

“He won’t be,” she says finally. 

“He may,” chimes her father solemnly. “He’s bright, exceptionally bright, but he doesn’t always think logically when under pressure, does he?” 

“Aha,” Rainer says quietly. “Well if you’ll excuse me, my accomplice should have secured the manor by now and so I’m needed elsewhere.Enjoy your… solitude.” Riza looks up furiously. 

“I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to come after you,” she tells him and is rewarded with another mirthless smile. 

“My dear, many brilliant State Alchemists failed to escape this exact situation. What makes you think that you, a soldier and a lapdog, will be any different?” He does something then, with the amulet around his neck and the next thing she knows he’s vanished. She whirls to see the other, physical version of him sit up slowly, and get to his feet. He looks back at her, though she’s sure he can’t see her, winks, and strides off towards the house. 

“Terrible business,” Berthold says. “If you’d only turned out to have a gift for alchemy.” Riza stands still, fists balled, breathing heavily, fighting the urge to sink to her knees. 

It’s all nothing more than a dream, she thinks. And how do you wake from a dream?

 

-x-

 

_ They were on her at once; she hadn’t seen them sneaking up to her post, how could she not have seen them? The ishvalan guerilla fighters were armed with blades, and she got only a single shot off before having to use her gun to block as they rained blows upon her. One man danced past her to bring his knife in, cutting towards her body quickly, too quickly- _

_ She woke in the night with a yell, thrashing wildly before she remembered where she was. _

_ The nightmare had to have come from sleeping in a strange place- she didn’t have them quite so often anymore. She was in a city in the east with the Colonel on an assignment and somehow the Powers That Be at Eastern Command had failed to book a room for the Colonel  _ and  _ his adjutant, resulting in the two of them having to share a modest sized room with a single modest sized bed.  _

_ There had been a brief but furious standoff where they each insisted that the other take the bed until Riza, exhausted and annoyed, had simply ordered him into the bed before climbing into the other side herself, close to the edge to put as much space between them as possible. She’d slept soundly until now, and the faint light in the room told her dawn wasn’t far off. There were hands firmly gripping her shoulders that released her as her breathing evened out. She looked over at Mustang, embarrassed.  _

_ “Sorry,” she told him, still shaking. He hesitated and then wrapped his arms around her gingerly, ash though she might either break or bolt. She stiffened before letting herself relax into the embrace, leaning her head sideways to rest on his chest, pushing down the distress at how easily the motion came.  _

_ “It was Ishval,” she said, unprompted.  _

_ “Do you dream about Ishval often?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that she could feel as well as hear. She breathed in time with him, her racing heart slowing back down.  _

_ “Not often. Just when I’m stressed, or someplace unfamiliar. I’ll be fine,” she told him, doubting it. More than likely she would be lying in silence until it was time for them to get up, but it didn’t do any good to say so. Unusually for her, however, after a few more moments of breathing in time with him and letting his warmth seep into her she was feeling her eyelids grow heavy. He was sturdy, and rubbing small circles into her back, and the usual heightened tension that strung across her bones after a nightmare wasn’t finding purchase.  _

_ “Do you want me to sleep on the floor? Give you some space?” he asked, pulling away as though it had just occurred to him that perhaps their sleeping arrangements were uncomfortable for her. And until now she would have agreed that yes, they were.  _

_ But in the predawn light, wrapped in his arms, she couldn’t recall a time where she’d felt more whole. _

_ “No,” she said quickly, before she could think better of it. “You’re helping.” She felt her cheeks start to burn. “What I mean to say is-” _

_ “Understood,” he finished, a trace of amusement in his voice. They both settled back down, close but not quite touching, facing towards each other this time. Nothing more was said, and he seemed to fall asleep first, his breathing slowing and evening out, limbs relaxing. She’d never know afterwards what possessed her, but the world, like her, was somewhere between awake and asleep, basking them in a weak blue light. Shadows pooled in the hollows under Roy’s eyes and she wondered if tonight, sleeping beside her, was the most sleep he’d gotten in a while. She shifted closer, settling an arm across his back,curling into him, filling empty spaces as though they were perfectly fit to each other. _

_ The next morning, neither of them mentioned it, briskly rolling out of bed and into their uniforms. She never could be sure about him, but it was the best night’s sleep she’d gotten in a very long time.   _

 

-x- 

 

In the clearing, Riza paces. 

“You aren’t real,” she says firmly to the shade of her father. Neither is she at the moment, she remembers, both of their incorporeal forms standing in the silent clearing. Havoc’s back is turned as he guards her still-suspended form. Berthold blinks slowly and real or not, the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. 

“Real enough to you. Didn’t I teach you better than to walk into an obvious trap like this? Those circles aren’t even concealed,” he replies, nodding towards the tree. Riza knows it’s her own subconscious berating her but it still stings. 

“You didn’t teach me much of anything,” she grumbles, surveying the circles, but she can’t make sense of them. A coma, he’d said. She was sleeping. She reached out hesitantly, fingertips grazing the ends of her own hair, loose around her shoulders, as though she can put herself back in her body like slipping on a coat. It doesn’t happen, however, and she turns back to her father’s silent floating visage. “You can’t even help me,” she says quietly. “You’re a memory - you can’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”

“Seems true enough,” he concedes. 

“And yet I’m talking to you anyway.” She tries to step outside the treeline but find that she can’t - the alchemical sigils are forming a barrier, a cage containing her. She half-expected this but it’s still frustrating. 

“Can you destroy the circles?” he asks patiently, and she shakes her head. 

“I can’t do anything like this, I’m not  _ real _ ,” she exclaims, resuming her pacing. She has always dreamed a often and vividly. More after the war, of course, but those were usually nightmares. When she was very young she would sometimes scramble to tell her mother about the fantasy worlds she entered when sleeping, insisting it was all real until her mother was able to coax her back to sleep. Her father, she remembers, never dreamed, at least not that he could recall. But he slept so seldom that perhaps his body was too worn down even to dream. 

“There must be something you can do,” he presses, and she turns on him. 

“Maybe I would know a little more if you hadn’t given up on me,” she spits, and the memory of her father looks surprised. “It’s true I’m not a fast learner, but you didn’t have any patience! You wanted someone whose mind worked like yours, and that wasn’t me, but I,” her voice shakes, betraying her. “You never made me feel wanted, or important, but I am both of those things, and I need to get back to my team.” 

“To your team, or to-”

“I think I would like it if you left,” she says, closing her eyes tightly. When she opens them he’s gone. Now she can focus, she thinks, blinking hard. 

Rainer had said she was asleep - no, not entirely true, he’d said she was closer to a coma. That explains why there was no waking her, a usually light sleeper, when her men where shouting feet away from her. But if trained, accomplished alchemists couldn’t work their way out of this then how can she expect to? She’s only a soldier, a sharpshooter really, and -

She realizes with a start that the gun is back in her hand, and raises it slowly to regard it. This is a dream, unlike any other but fundamentally the same. She doesn’t know much at all about alchemy, it’s true; just what she’s absorbed through nearly thirty years of constant exposure. But she knows herself, and she knows what it feels like to wake with a start, sweating and shaking in the middle of the night. Quickly, before she can think much about it, she brings the gun up to her head and pulls the trigger. 

She barely has time to throw her arms out in front of her before she topples to the forest floor, jumping right back up again, gun at the ready, and meets Havoc’s wide blue eyes, his gun also reflexively trained on her due to her sudden movement. 

“Shit, Hawkeye, you scared me,” he says, lowering it at once. “What-”

“We have to move quickly,” she says, scrabbling briefly in the leaves to retrieve her sidearm where she’d dropped it earlier.She takes one frantic look around but he’s been left alone to guard her prone form. Riza takes off at a sprint towards the house, and Havoc follows without hesitation, their footfalls crunching, moonlight illuminating the way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I am #sorrynotsorry for any discrepancies, errors, or general messiness that this story entails. Flying by the seat of my pants as usual. I hope you enjoy and yes, the last chapter will be up soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Bear with me folks, I'm going to try to keep up with this week and a result this might all be a largely unedited mess, but I'm just going to have fun cramming all the Royai tropes I can find into it and reaching to relate to the prompts. Stay tuned!


End file.
